Postal workers: Eliminating Saturday delivery not the right route VIDEO

By Ian Benjamin

Sunday, March 24, 2013

COLONIE -- Heeding the call of the AFL-CIO, union and community members were gathering across the nation Sunday afternoon to protest the end of Saturday mail delivery. In Colonie, a large crowd, many dressed in postal service blue, gathered at the gate of the USPS processing center in Albany to underline that message.

"We are opposed to the Postal Service cutting back its deliveries from six day to five day," said William B. Cook, president of NALC Northeastern New York Branch 358. "We believe it is a viable and necessary institution in this region of New York."

After losing $15.9 billion last year and coming close to reaching its legal borrowing limit, USPS Postmaster-General Patrick R. Donahoe announced last month that mail delivery would cease beginning Aug. 5, but package delivery would continue. The plan would save the service $2 billion annually once fully implemented, according to USPS cost projections.

"The Postal Service has a responsibility to take the steps necessary to return to long-term financial stability and ensure the continued affordability of the U.S. Mail," said Donahoe in the announcement.

Members of the local branches of the National Association of Letter Carriers believe dropping Saturday delivery is a drastic step to return the Postal Service to fiscal solvency. While package deliveries will continue, the unions believe the switch will force commercial interests in the region to move to companies in direct competition with USPS, such as FedEx and the United Postal Service (UPS).

As the service is now, the unions believe that it is unparalleled, and the move will begin a gradually downward spiral that will, at the very least, erode the service's offerings, if not bring about its downfall.

The effort to halt the implementation of five-day service has received some support from government officials, some of whom believe that the Postal Service needs reform, but not in this fashion.

"We need to reform the service in ways that ensure its long-term survival, but not by lopping it off limb-by-limb," wrote Sen. Charles Schumer in a letter of support.

The USPS experienced a sharp drop in revenue following the 2008 recession and overall declines in mail volume since the early aughts, largely attributed to the rise of internet communication and online business transactions.

The NALC believes that the root of the current crises does not lie in those long-term trends, but is the result of recent financial losses due to legislation passed in 2006. That law, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, mandated that $5.5 billion a year be paid into an account to fund retiree health-care 75 years into the future, and to do so within 10 years. The NALC believes that this mandate is behind the drain on USPS coffers.

"This threat was created in 2006 by Congress when they forced the Postal Service to fund retirement health benefit premiums for people not even hired yet," said Cook. "There's no other agency in the federal government that has to do this, there's no other business in the United States that has to do this. It's an onerous tax upon the Postal Service that is going to drive the Postal Service into bankruptcy."

Before 2007, USPS was "profitable and debt-free," according to NALC and had been self-sustaining since it began foregoing taxpayer dollars in the 1980s. Since 2007, the service has recorded losses of $31.8 billion, of which $27 billion was a "direct result of the pre-funding mandate," according to literature provided by the union.

The letter carriers' union has begun a fight to preserve the six-day delivery, and enlisted the AFL-CIO to organize the Sunday "Delivering for America" rallies throughout the country.

"We're not going under," said Robert Riley, vice-president of NALC Branch 258.

Despite the growing controversy over the delivery change, the effort by the USPS and the unions may be for naught -- according to the Government Accountability Office, the USPS may not have the legal authority to cut mail delivery to fewer than six days, as that authority rests with members of Congress.